


Redux

by lunabee34 (Lorraine)



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, Episode: s04e10 This Mortal Coil, F/M, M/M, Rape/Non-con Elements, Replicators
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-26
Updated: 2014-03-26
Packaged: 2018-01-17 04:03:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1373239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorraine/pseuds/lunabee34
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After watching "This Mortal Coil," I had a terrible thought.  Just how many times has the Team had its memories wiped?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Redux

Rodney wakes up strapped to a gurney. He doesn’t hurt which surprises him. Major Lorne stunned him from a distance of less than one meter and his head should be aching and his stomach cramping. They’re not. Dr. Keller yanks the restraints on his left leg a little tighter and then leans over him.

“I wish there was another way,” she says.

“There is! There is!” Rodney says. “Whatever’s wrong with you, I can help. I can fix it.” He struggles against the restraints, working the little slack he finds until his wrists burn.

“McKay! McKay!” Sheppard yells over Rodney’s radio. “I’m cut off from the jumper bay. Teyla and Ronon are down. Rodney, do you read me?” Rodney tries frantically to respond but the radio slips down his neck and he can’t turn his head far enough to depress the button that opens his comm line. “Shit,” Sheppard says and then he is quiet. Dr. Keller removes the radio with gentle fingers and places it in a surgical tray.

She says, “We didn’t think you would notice so quickly but obviously there were unforeseen glitches in the experimental environment. Next time will go much more smoothly.”

“Next time? What do you mean next time?” Rodney’s stomach is certainly cramping now, his breath coming faster, and he can’t shake the thought that he’d rather have died alongside his team than tied down alone in the infirmary.

Dr. Keller passes some sort of diagnostic instrument Rodney has never seen over his body. “I am sorry,” she says and her smile is very, very sad.

Rodney closes his eyes.

@@@

“Something’s wrong,” Rodney says. “With Katie.”

Sheppard nicks Ronon’s pudding cup and barely escapes being stabbed through the hand with a fork. The fork quivers on its tines, upright and buried nearly to the hilt in the table between them, and Rodney considers asking Ronon to come with him to the labs after lunch for a round of Object Lessons with the scientists murdering Zelenka’s propulsion equations. “What do you mean?” Sheppard says.

Rodney thinks over the last few days, the vague unease he hasn’t been able to shake magnifying now that he’s actually voicing his suspicions out loud. “I don’t know exactly. She’s just . . . different somehow. Anxious. Like she’s keeping something from me.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, buddy, but Katie Brown’s always been a little twitchy. Maybe you’re just reading too much into how she’s acting.”

Rodney rolls his eyes. “Okay, fine. I’ll give you that one, Colonel. It’s no secret that most of the scientists on this expedition are socially maladjusted and, as you so cleverly put it, twitchy. But this isn’t Katie’s usual endearing awkwardness. It feels calculated.”

“Perhaps,” Teyla says, “she is preparing some sort of surprise for you and has difficulty keeping her intentions secret.”

Rodney frowns. “Maybe.” He glances up from his lentil pilaf and catches Dr. Keller staring at their table. “Just forget I said anything.”

Rodney works in the lab on his streamlining program until dusk and then he meets Katie in her quarters for dinner. The windows are opened wide to the night, light from Atlantis smearing the low clouds orange, and Rodney idly wishes he could see the stars. Dinner is good, roast beef and tender vegetables and sweet flaky rolls that the Athosians taught the cooks to bake that first year. Katie doesn’t do anything during dinner that seems out of character and Rodney feels himself start to finally relax.

After they eat, Rodney takes Katie to bed, unbuttoning her shirt and putting his mouth on all the places he uncovers. They haven’t slept together as often as either of them would like; her body is still new to him, astonishing and very beautiful. Rodney likes how large his hand looks on the small of her back, the sharp little cries she makes when he sucks one pink nipple into a swollen peak, the desperate way she grinds herself against his face when she is close to orgasm. After she comes the first time, Katie swallows Rodney down, his cock stretching her mouth wide. She reaches between her legs and rubs herself as she sucks and Rodney makes a broken noise in the back of his throat. Then Katie does something that none of Rodney’s female lovers have ever done without being asked—she takes a finger, slick with her own juices, and works it slowly into Rodney’s asshole. Rodney’s so surprised and turned on, he forgets that he wants this to last much longer and comes in a shuddering rush.

“That was, wow. That was amazing,” Rodney says and Katie ducks her head and smiles, shy again. Rodney spoons up behind her and falls asleep almost instantly.

Sometime before dawn, Zelenka’s voice wakes Rodney and he slips out of bed and fumbles for his radio. He can’t remember where he put it exactly and he doesn’t want to disturb Katie by turning on the light. After a few moments Katie says, “I think you left it on the table, Rodney,” and moves past him in the darkness. “Here,” Katie says and then cries out in pain. Rodney turns on the lights and Katie is clutching her hand, blood pooling up in her palm and dripping onto the floor.

“Oh, god,” Rodney says. “My dinner knife, I … Let me see your hand.”

Katie shrinks away from his touch. “No, no. It’s fine, Rodney. Really.”

“You’re bleeding. You might need to go to the infirmary. Let me see your hand.” Rodney pulls her to him and presses a dinner napkin to the wound. When he carefully peels the napkin away, Rodney can’t believe what he sees. Or rather, what he doesn’t see. Katie’s palm is smooth and whole, its skin unbroken.

“Katie?” Rodney says. “Your hand. There’s nothing there. No cut, nothing. What, what just happened?” Rodney feels a terrible coldness in his belly and the fine hairs on the backs of his arms rise. He’s seen wounds heal like this before and he won’t let himself contemplate what might be happening to Katie. “We need to get you to the infirmary now.”

“Alright,” Katie says and lets him lead her by the elbow.

The infirmary is surprisingly full. Dr. Keller is giving Major Lorne’s team its post-mission once over and Radek is on his knees underneath a console next to the freezer units. “Ah, there you are, Rodney,” he says. “I had begun to think you were ignoring me.”

“Not now, Radek,” Rodney says. “Something’s happened to Katie. I think she might be infected with nanites. Or some kind of retrovirus, although I don’t know how either of those things is possible.”

Dr. Keller leaves Major Lorne’s bedside and places a comforting hand on Rodney’s shoulder. “Slow down, Rodney. Take a deep breath and explain what happened.”

“It’s too late, Jennifer,” Katie says. “The experiment has been compromised. We’ll have to begin again.”

“Wiping them again so soon is such a waste,” Radek says.

“What experiment?” Rodney says. “What are you talking about?” No one answers him and Rodney hesitates a split second before he runs. He almost reaches the door before Major Lorne sweeps his legs out from under him. He hits the floor with a bone jarring smack that he knows he’ll feel later when the adrenaline wears off. Rodney slowly stands and every soldier in the room points a weapon at him.

“Did you manage to experience sexual intercourse before the experiment was compromised?” Dr. Keller asks and everyone in the room looks at Katie, waits eagerly for her response. 

Rodney crosses his arms tightly over his chest and breathes slowly through his nose; he think he might throw up. Rodney’s been embarrassed before. He’s felt exposed and he’s been betrayed. But nothing in his life has prepared him for the humiliation of standing in a room full of his colleagues and listening to the woman he just made love to recount the event as a scientific experiment. Rodney knows he’s probably about to die and yet he can’t stop thinking about his thumb drawing lazy circles on Katie’s hip as they fell asleep. He wonders if Sheppard and Ronon and Teyla were complicit in this deception; he wonders if they’re still alive.

“Yes,” Katie answers. “It is a strange intimacy, nothing like the link between us. They cannot share themselves the way we can; their connections are so primitive, and yet strangely compelling.” Katie smiles at Major Lorne and Rodney flinches. “It is a pity that none of the others have formed sexual relationships with expedition members. I learned much more from this one encounter than I have since we woke them.”

Dr. Keller sighs. “I am unwilling to abandon this trial when Dr. McKay is the sole subject affected.” She picks up a handheld scanner Rodney doesn’t recognize. “I will attempt to erase only the past hour.”

@@@

“They will find us,” Teyla says. “There is nowhere we can hide. The nearest Stargate is three week’s journey by jumper and we do not have enough food to last us even a day.”

Rodney tries to smile and suspects that the expression looks more hideous than anything else. “So we’ll make a pit stop. Pick up some supplies on one of these planets along the way.” 

Sheppard claps him on the shoulder and grins for real, and Rodney feels a tiny spark of hope flare in his chest. “Now that’s the spirit, McKay.” 

“Where do you think we should go?” Ronon asks and Sheppard shrugs and points to a planet on the HUD. “Then go the opposite way. They’ve seen into our minds. They know everything about us. We have to trip them up, keep them guessing.”

Twelve hours later, Sheppard sets the jumper down at the edge of a field of grain. Ronon and Teyla both recognize many of the plants growing in the immediate area and set Rodney and Sheppard to harvesting them. Rodney digs up potato-like roots with a pointed stick that Ronon sharpened while Sheppard strips low lying shrubs of their leaves. If they cover their tracks, take the unexpected route, the trip back to Atlantis will take much longer than three weeks and none of them wants to stop again if they can help it. Every minute they’re on the ground is dangerous.

When the shadows have grown long and Rodney has sweated through his shirt to the waist, Teyla and Ronon drag the carcass of a wild animal into the field. Rodney doesn’t watch as she and Ronon butcher it. The sounds of their knives hacking through its flesh sicken him enough as it is. Sheppard doesn’t want to risk a fire, but he doesn’t want to refrigerate raw meat in the jumper either, so Rodney extends the jumper’s cloak several meters and they cook the meat under its safety. Rodney hopes the treeline obscures most of the smoke.

“I just don’t understand how they captured us. Or when, for that matter,” Rodney says.

“Or what the Replicators hoped to gain by such a charade,” Teyla says.

Sheppard leans back against the hull of the jumper. “Let’s just get back to Atlantis and we can figure it out there.”

Ronon turns the meat and the fire spits and hisses, throws sparks on Rodney’s bare arms. The sting is oddly reassuring, grounding. “I wonder how long we’ve been gone,” he says.

Teyla says, “We have no way of knowing. They may fear we are dead.”

Sheppard leans forward, his eyes dark and intense, his jaw squared. “Well, we’re not. And we’re not gonna be.”

Rodney believes him. 

Ronon and Teyla take the first watch and Rodney and Sheppard bunk down on the floor of the jumper. By the time Ronon shakes Rodney awake, Sheppard has rolled into Rodney’s space and their legs are tangled and warm. 

Later, when Rodney is flat on his back in the dirt and fading, he will think in that final moment of consciousness that it all happened so fast. They took out Teyla and Ronon first, as they packed the last of the meat in thick yellow leaves. Rodney couldn’t even see where the shots were coming from, but he did see Sheppard push him out of the way and take the blast that was meant for him. Rodney patted him down frantically for wounds but found nothing. He didn’t know whether to be grateful his team was only stunned or despair.

Major Lorne rose up out of the tall grass, his weapon trained on Rodney. “How did you find us?” Rodney said.

“We have been shadowing you this entire time. Your escape yielded data we could not afford to lose.” 

The last thing Rodney sees before everything goes dark is Sheppard’s face, pale and vulnerable in the firelight.

 

@@@

“We can’t keep them out of here forever,” Sheppard says.

“Yeah,” Rodney says. “I know.”

“Still,” Sheppard says, stretching his legs out on the floor in front of him. “Four days is a lot longer than I thought we’d have four days ago.”

Sheppard’s hands are curled loosely at his sides and Rodney reaches out and covers one of them with his own. Sheppard stiffens for a minute, but then his body relaxes and Rodney’s fingers slip between his, warm and safe. Rodney knows this isn’t what they do, but it could be, it might be somewhere else, and they both are so very, very tired.

“Do you think Ronon and Teyla freed Elizabeth?” Rodney asks.

“If it was humanly possible, then yeah.”

“Oh, but you forget, Colonel. We aren’t human.”

“I didn’t forget.” Sheppard’s fingers tighten around his and Rodney wants so badly to kiss him. So he does. At first Sheppard doesn’t respond and then his free hand fists in Rodney’s shirt and he opens his mouth and Rodney loses himself in Sheppard’s intensity. It’s almost painful, what they’re doing—Sheppard’s stubble scratching an angry line down Rodney’s neck, his mouth sucking up the blood on Rodney’s shoulders, Rodney rubbing Sheppard fast and hard through his pants. Sheppard gets them both unzipped and Rodney strokes them together, watching as the head of Sheppard’s cock slides against his own. When he comes, Sheppard moans Rodney’s name and Rodney keeps his eyes open through his own orgasm because he doesn’t want to miss anything—the deep flush on Sheppard’s chest, Sheppard’s mouth all kiss-swollen and red, his cock still twitching in Rodney’s grip.

“I wonder how many times we’ve done this,” Rodney says, wiping his hands on Sheppard’s shirt.

Sheppard makes a face and tosses the shirt into the corner of the lab. “I don’t know,” he says. “Probably not nearly enough.”

When the Replicators finally break down the door, Rodney and Sheppard are kissing, and when everything fractures again, this is what Rodney holds onto the longest—Sheppard’s mouth and his hands and the curve of his ass, sweet slide of skin, and the sharp edge of desire.


End file.
